Malka only slept on her tummy on top of us for a ridiculously long time (like two months). She mostly sleeps on her side now, particularly now that she's rolling - occasionally she rolls all the way over in her sleep and freaks out and wakes up. We also are transitioning her to her co-sleeper (and out of our bed) for naps and her first sleep of the night and there's all kinds of crepe in there that the experts say shouldn't be, but having her toys and blankets in there seems to be comforting to her and I also don't want to start having to dress her for bed and our room is chilly, so a blanket is necessary. I don't know, I just can't seem to get that worked up about potential SIDS risks and I think that if you are doing so many of the things that already reduce risk (like breastfeeding and not smoking), the absolute risk is really very low.

Malka also goes to sleep stupid late. In the beginning her "long sleep" started at 1am. We've got her starting the long sleep between 10:30 and 11:30 at this point, but then again her long sleep has gone from 4 hours to 6 or 7 hours down to 3 hours, so who knows, maybe we should just let her stay up until she passes out. The best thing we did to encourage earlier night sleeping was having a wind-down schedule with lights down, TV off, music off, reading the same stories, singing the same songs, and then rubbing her tummy and shushing until she goes to sleep. And when we put her down and she gets a second wind all of a sudden we pick her up and try again later rather than fighting it for an hour.

Malka only slept on her tummy on top of us for a ridiculously long time (like two months). She mostly sleeps on her side now, particularly now that she's rolling - occasionally she rolls all the way over in her sleep and freaks out and wakes up. We also are transitioning her to her co-sleeper (and out of our bed) for naps and her first sleep of the night and there's all kinds of crepe in there that the experts say shouldn't be, but having her toys and blankets in there seems to be comforting to her and I also don't want to start having to dress her for bed and our room is chilly, so a blanket is necessary. I don't know, I just can't seem to get that worked up about potential SIDS risks and I think that if you are doing so many of the things that already reduce risk (like breastfeeding and not smoking), the absolute risk is really very low.

Malka also goes to sleep stupid late. In the beginning her "long sleep" started at 1am. We've got her starting the long sleep between 10:30 and 11:30 at this point, but then again her long sleep has gone from 4 hours to 6 or 7 hours down to 3 hours, so who knows, maybe we should just let her stay up until she passes out. The best thing we did to encourage earlier night sleeping was having a wind-down schedule with lights down, TV off, music off, reading the same stories, singing the same songs, and then rubbing her tummy and shushing until she goes to sleep. And when we put her down and she gets a second wind all of a sudden we pick her up and try again later rather than fighting it for an hour.

We used blankets too even though it's technically a SIDS risk, but eventually I found a super-warm sleep slack (the grobag 2.5 tog ones are great), and I've found they keep my daughter warmer than blankets because she was always kicking them off. She now sleeps in a long sleeved onesie + warm sleep suit + the sleep sack. We do have a really chilly house in the winter though!

Sorry, I didn't mean to be bisque-y. I think I'm just stressed as this is my last week home with babynut before I go back full time. The weather has been really nice and each day this week she has been an absolute monster that doesn't take a nap. ALL DAY. She was too fussy for us to ever get outside and do anything, no stroller, no babywearing. She is 11 weeks and not taking naps! So it was fussy all day, start napping around five, and then up on and off all night. Not cute.

Today has been different, thank god. She slept well last night and took one longish (3 hour) nap midday. I slept too and I feel so much better. She is so much more relaxed and happy now! If only you could explain it to them why sleep is so great and it will make their lives better.

I dread going back to work with this sleep routine in such a state of flux. Hopefully she will have to gravitate toward my schedule a bit.

I dread going back to work with this sleep routine in such a state of flux. Hopefully she will have to gravitate toward my schedule a bit.

Well if it is any consolation, Kai was always a terrible napper when I was home. Then, seemingly like a switch was flipped, when I went back to work he napped pretty regularly for his manny. I was so worried he wouldn't take a nap without me, because the only way he did it was if I would hold him. Either that, or maybe 20 min in the baby swing tops. Like magic though, when I wasn't there he would take 2 naps a day in the swing. I think it is just a whole different ballgame when they realize you aren't there.

To this day he still naps better for his manny. I think he gets so excited when mommy and daddy are home he doesn't want to sleep. That, and it seems pretty common for kids to be more needy around their mom. I think it is just the whole 'feel more comfortable around those you trust most' thing. Although it sucks 'feel more comfortable' often translates to be a whiny nudge just for mommy!

_________________I'm not asking for utopian dreams...just a little peace in this world. That's a logical thing. - Deee-Lite

I totally agree on the "sleeps well for others" thing. I strongly suspect that, had I not gone back to work, I would never have been able to get Dahlia on a good sleep schedule. She has been napping like clockwork for Howard for over 2 years now but occasionally when I am home on the weekends will completely snap out of her routine and either just want me to hold her or be really fussy. She has NEVER given him a fuss at all about sleeping when I'm out of the house. Thanks kid!

Butternut, i do hope things quickly resolve for you! Hopefully the sleeps well for others thing really is true. Yesterday i was talking to a moms group leader about my sleeping concerns and she said that babies often adapt to routines when mom is out of the picture (in my case it's a concern that baby will rest well in her future day care environment). One of the other moms mentioned that she is using the EASY method from the Baby Whisperer book to create some sort of routine. I am going to read the book this weekend and see what I can start applying. I'm also going to try swaddling to give back sleeping some more time. Last night I got 3 hours out of her.

That is so interesting about sleeping better for someone other than mom. I'd read that with babies its because they can still smell the milk so they are torn between eating and sleeping, but its interesting that it continues past weaning.

Leela fights sleep so hard. She will spend an hour barely being able to keep her eyes open, punching, crying with that adorable bottom lip out (which makes me spontaneous want to cover her with kisses because it looks so sad and laugh really hard because its so adorable) before she finally just conks out. Sadly that nap is sometimes just about 30 mins long which makes the preceding agita all the more annoying

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

That is so interesting about sleeping better for someone other than mom. I'd read that with babies its because they can still smell the milk so they are torn between eating and sleeping, but its interesting that it continues past weaning.

In my experience, it is true for a lot of weaned kids, sometimes even preschool age kids, and formula fed babies. Not every kid and not every night, but a lot of the time for sure.

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

Butternut - in the book I am reading "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems", the author does say that if the baby has night and day mixed up, that they should be woken from daytime naps to encourage more nighttime sleeping. So, it's not from my experience, but the author has worked with thousands of babies...

So far the techniques in this book are starting to work for me. We're only at the beginning, so I am still challenged at each nap time, but overall, it's going good. I wish I would have had this book weeks ago but hopefully in the next few weeks I'll get some serious results. How wonderful would it be to know I'll get several solid nap times every day during which I can do whatever I need to?

Butternut - in the book I am reading "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems", the author does say that if the baby has night and day mixed up, that they should be woken from daytime naps to encourage more nighttime sleeping. So, it's not from my experience, but the author has worked with thousands of babies...

So far the techniques in this book are starting to work for me. We're only at the beginning, so I am still challenged at each nap time, but overall, it's going good. I wish I would have had this book weeks ago but hopefully in the next few weeks I'll get some serious results. How wonderful would it be to know I'll get several solid nap times every day during which I can do whatever I need to?

Thanks Sarah Bo Berra, I might check that book out. I no longer think she's got day and night mixed up. I think she finally just crashed around 4:30pm after not napping all day. She slept for five hours, fed, then slept six hours that night. Thank god! So I guess she just needed to go to bed earlier. Before that she wouldn't go to bed for her long sleep until 10 or later. But who knows what will happen with my new work schedule. I snoozed a little bit sitting up while she was nursing just now. So tired!

I have a routine with Raygold that seems to finally be helping. I boob him to sleep for a nap at about noon and then boob him to sleep for bedtime at 8 or 9 pm. He seems to be sleeping better at night when he has a nap earlier in the day, although he still wakes often to nurse.

This is really weird for me because Beety almost never napped ever and slept really well once he was several months old.

wolverine slept in his crib last night for 6 hours! Our record before that was a 1/2 hour! He also didn't nap but one 1/2 hour stretch at 4:45. We are on a sleep roller coaster. I hope he does better today for my partner.

My kid sucks at sleep and I am losing my patience. He still wakes up 3 or 4 times a night, not necessarily to nurse, but to play or climb and then have a tantrum when I will not let him climb. I dream of the day when I will sleep 6 consecutive hours, but my bigger problem is that he sucks at falling asleep: unless he is completely exhausted, nursing no longer knocks him out. Rocking and singing can take an hour or more. Basically if I am with him, he wants to play and bedtime takes two hours and I have shiitake to do in the evening, so I thought he was ready to learn to self-sooth. He is 16 goddamn months old. But the self soothing is not going well. There is so much crying and screaming and hyperventilating and I feel like I might throw up from listening to it. It is 2:20 and we started this at 1. And he was tired and yawning then. Give up, kid! If I go in there and pick him up he will just want to play, and I will have taught him that the key to getting his way is to cry for 80 minutes. This sucks and I feel like a terrible mother. I honestly don't know what is best for him here.

Mitten, if you are interested in trying to sleep train, I do highly recommend reading Ferber. Here are the basics, and how we ended up getting Lydia to sleep. The general idea is that you don't just leave your kid to cry alone for as long as it takes, but instead go in at regular intervals. You gradually increase the time between visits to soothe. So, for instance, on the first day, you go in after 3 minutes of crying, then if he's still crying, you go in after 5 mins, then 10 mins, and every 10 minutes after that.

I would go in there each time, rub my daughter's back, and in a soothing tone of voice tell her that she's OK but it's time to go to sleep. For naps though, Ferber recommends taking them out of bed if they aren't asleep after 30 minutes. So sometimes, we had no naps, and the evening was hell, but things calmed down eventually.

You sound exactly like me a couple of months ago, mitten. poopiebaby still doesn't sleep more than about 3 hours (SOMETIMES 4), and we still cosleep, but he goes to sleep on his own at night now. We were going through ridiculous bedtime antics for 2+ hours every night as well, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I tried the cry it out thing when he was about 18 months, but after two weeks it wasn't getting better so I quit.

Then about a month ago I tried again. After about three or four nights, he went down without crying. Now sometimes he even turns the boob down (I know, what?!) and lays straight down in bed if he's really tired. He'll still cry when he wakes up (anywhere from 1-3 hours later) if I haven't gone to bed yet, but I just do the bedtime routine again and he goes back to sleep. He goes to bed at 8pm now (it had been, like, 1am? If I was lucky?).

It has changed my life, and it WILL happen for you. Even if it doesn't happen right now and you give up, don't lose hope because it might work next month. You haven't failed at anything, you didn't make him a crappy sleeper, and this too shall pass. Hugs.

Some kids are stubborn..you didn't "make" him into.a bad sleeper. Cut yourself some slack. My kid's 4 months old and already I know that this parenting gig is some hard shiitake. I'm typing this on my phone while she sleeps on me.

Will your Lo use any things like teddy,music box, blankie etc for soothing?

(hugs)

What happens if you're with him but refuse to talk or play...does he cry then?

What happens if you're with him but refuse to talk or play...does he cry then?

Yes. And that's why the whole Ferber thing of going in to soothe at intervals has not worked for us. When he sees me and hears my voice all it does is reset the clock and ramp him back up. If I don't go back in to check on him sometimes he winds down and goes to sleep.

I sound like the wicked witch of the west, but if the attachment parenting stuff still worked, I would be doing it. As I see it, my choices are:

1. Nurse him, hold him, sing songs, and rock him while he screams and claws and tries to climb me and pull my hair and rake his nails across my chest. An hour and a half in, sometimes he is asleep. This has been our routine for the last few months, but after a certain amount of injury I get angry.

2. Nurse him, hold him, rock and sing songs for a reasonable amount of time, put him in his crib and tell him I'm going downstairs. He cries forever.

3. Do not even attempt to enforce bedtime. Let him stay up and play until he collapses. Have no time to myself in the evening and no time to reconnect with my husband. I become grumpy and resentful and Walter is cranky from not sleeping enough.

So there are tears no matter what. There are tears if I stay with him. There are tears if I leave him alone. The only way he falls asleep without tears is in the car, but we are not about to start going for a drive every evening because that is ridiculous.

2. Nurse him, hold him, rock and sing songs for a reasonable amount of time, put him in his crib and tell him I'm going downstairs. He cries forever.

I'm sure this is a long shot, but what if you did that and gave him something to look at in his crib? Like his favorite books or a toy or two? Do you think he would quietly entertain himself for a while?

Even if it doesn't happen right now and you give up, don't lose hope because it might work next month. You haven't failed at anything, you didn't make him a crappy sleeper, and this too shall pass. Hugs.

Exactly this. I thought the Emperor would NEVER go to sleep on his own or without major drama. We had one really bad night when he was 18 or 19 months old where I did EVERYTHING to try to get him to sleep... nursing, rocking, singing, wearing him in the Ergo, for seriously about 2 hours... he howled through all of it... finally I put him down in bed and left and he cried for about 20 more minutes and fell asleep. Night after that, I went straight to putting him down, he cried for about five minutes, fell asleep. Third night: he just went to sleep.

And it just kept working after that, though it certainly didn't when I tried similar things when he was younger. These days, I seriously put him in bed, sing 3 songs to him, and peace out.

I don't know why he changed, but he did, and Walter will too. My fingers are crossed that it happens sooner rather than later for you!

Yes. And that's why the whole Ferber thing of going in to soothe at intervals has not worked for us. When he sees me and hears my voice all it does is reset the clock and ramp him back up. If I don't go back in to check on him sometimes he winds down and goes to sleep.

This was poopiebaby, too. We sleep on a mattress on the floor, so there was no way of trying to calm him that didn't involve him physically throwing himself at me. I literally used the the same phrase of 'resetting' every time I went in, so eventually I stopped going in. It's okay. He's old enough to know you haven't abandoned him, you're not doing psychological damage by letting him cry. I promise you, it feels like the hardest and worst thing in the world right now, but it will be over soon.

I know so well that feeling of being at the end of your rope and like it's your last resort, please don't beat yourself up over this. And like C&S said, sometimes things don't work the first time you try them, but that doesn't mean they'll never work. Walter is in a stage of rapid development right now, he's changing from a baby to a little boy, and things are about to start getting a lot easier. I promise.

2. Nurse him, hold him, rock and sing songs for a reasonable amount of time, put him in his crib and tell him I'm going downstairs. He cries forever.

I'm sure this is a long shot, but what if you did that and gave him something to look at in his crib? Like his favorite books or a toy or two? Do you think he would quietly entertain himself for a while?

He has books and some safe toys in his crib and he will happily entertain himself in there for 20 or 30 minutes as long as he doesn't think I'm trying to get him to sleep. It is maddening. If I am cleaning the bathroom or taking out the dogs or something he will read and play and have a great time in his crib. But at nap time and bedtime he is just so mad that he has to sleep that he cannot collect himself.

Thanks for the help, guys. I know that this will work itself out somehow, eventually, but man we are having one hell of a day. While I was reading your advice he threw a piece of hummus toast at the wall... sigh.